Abstract
We derive an arbitrary-gauge criterion under which condensed matter within an electromagnetic field may transition to a photon condensed phase. Previous results are recovered by selecting the Coulomb-gauge wherein photon condensation can only occur for a spatially-varying field and can be interpreted as a magnetic instability. We demonstrate the gauge-invariance of our description directly, but since matter and photons are gauge-relative concepts we find more generally that photon condensation can occur within a spatially uniform field, and that the relative extent to which the instability is both magnetic and electric versus purely magnetic depends on the gauge.
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